Biography
Katia Tiutiunnik is a composer and scholar who has studied several languages as an adjunct to her research. Tiutiunnik was the first Australian composer to be appointed visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York. She was also the first Australian to complete a residency at Charles Morrow Productions, New York, where she composed a work for three-dimensional soundcube, presented in Cologne, in November 2005. Most recently, she was a Senior Lecturer in Composition at the Faculty of Music, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia, from March 2012 until April 2016 (after which she declined the offer of a further extension to her contract there) and an Honorary Research Associate at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the University of Sydney, from June 2010 until June 2016. In August 2016, Tiutiunnik was appointed Professor of Music at SIAS University, Xinzheng, Henan Province, China where she worked until embarking on a privately sponsored sabbatical in South East Asia on November 20 2019.
Tiutiunnik earned her PhD from the Australian National University and was awarded the highest Italian postgraduate diploma from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, where she studied with Franco Donatoni. She obtained her BMus from Sydney Conservatorium, where she was awarded all three of their composition prizes. In December 2009, Tiutiunnik’s PhD dissertation was published and released internationally.
Besides Franco Donatoni, Tiutiunnik’s former composition teachers include Michael Smetanin, Larry Sitsky, Gillian Whitehead, Bozidar Kos and Richard Toop.
Composer website: https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/tiutiunnik-katia
Featured Works
Jehanne, for Soprano and Viola.
Jehanne was commissioned by Elisabetta Faenza and has been performed in Australia (2008) and the United States (2007). The text for Jehanne is an excerpt from the final section of Elisabetta Faenza’s libretto for the very successful rock opera, Jehanne D’Arc (Joan of Arc), by Linda Oxley, and is intended to be a verbal expression of the state of spiritual illumination Jehanne experienced, just prior to being burned at the stake. The musical setting for this text was inspired by my interpretations of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish and Islamic musical traditions:
But that was not enough,
What I needed, what I lacked,
Was a vision for life,
For my own life,
Beyond the ramparts and the battle field.For was this not my script,
The fulfilment of my own prophecy?
And were not these fellows,
But players in the story I had woven for myself?Let not this archetype play on,
Of women, noble, gifted and strong,
Who martyr themselves for God, family or country.Let a new story be told,
For I am tired of this plot,
Some five hundred years on.Women raise your heads,
– Katia Tiutiunnik
Dry your eyes,
And find yourselves a vision for living,
That radiates life.
Featured in Sacred Music Waves – December 2019
MAKING WAVES 